Vorselaar Library

New chapter for former convent ballroom

Until early 2024, you could go there by invitation only. Today, the monastery's banquet hall in Vorselaar is a bustling, public library for villagers, students and cultural associations.

It is no secret that the global monastic community is shrinking. This is also the case in the Kempen municipality of Vorselaar. There, the municipality and the Congregation of Sisters of Christian Schools have formed a community for more than 200 years. But in recent years, nuns have stopped arriving, and a few buildings on the convent grounds are mostly empty.

Repurposing heritage

In cooperation with the sisters, the Vorselaar municipality repurposed part of the convent grounds. For example, the former banquet hall became a village library with more than 20,000 books. This keeps the convent history alive and gives villagers access to the otherwise closed heritage. At the same time, the municipality can repurpose the current infrastructure instead of putting up a new building project there, for example.

Meeting place for all bookworms

Besides a library, the municipality mainly wants to create a meeting place there for schools, students and book lovers. For instance, there will be a reading nest full of crinkly books and read-alouds for schoolchildren, quiet study areas for ‘blocking’ students and a cosy ‘corner’ where you can dive into the books with a cup of coffee. To also reach older and low-literacy target groups, the municipality set up a Digipoint and a Language Point.